When to trust others, and when to trust your gut
On cultivating wisdom and discernment, and why simple, static rules are not enough to help us navigate the vicissitudes of life; and a giveaway of Ryan Holiday's new book, RIGHT THING, RIGHT NOW!
Gracious reader,
A core argument of my book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, is that there is an essential difference between civility and politeness.
Politeness is a technique. It’s external compliance with rules and manners.
Civility is a disposition. It’s an orientation toward others that fundamentally respects their dignity and personhood, and that helps us determine when breaking rules of politeness is actually the respectful thing to do.
I argue that today, we’re too often content settling for mere politeness—unthinking compliance with social norms and rituals.
We should instead aim for civility—the disposition that respects others enough to tell hard truths and suspend the rules of etiquette for the greater good of community and friendship.
The reality is that human life is often far too complex to adhere to an unchanging set of rules. We need to cultivate the wisdom and discernment to know when departing from conventional wisdom is the appropriate course of action.
Conversely, people can act with great injustice—all the while following rules and norms to the letter. English playwright George Bernard Shaw observed this when he said, “If you will only take the trouble to always to do the perfectly correct thing, and say the perfectly correct thing, you can do just whatever you like.”
Following a rule of etiquette might be proper in one circumstance, but harmful in another. As Ryan Holiday writes in his new book—out tomorrow!—called Right Thing, Right Now, “We often know what the right thing to do is. The problem is timing. Is this the right opportunity? the Right moment?”
This is where discretion, discernment, intuition come in to play.
(Read to the end to learn details of how to win a copy of Ryan’s new book!)
I’ve recently been reflecting on some of the challenges we’ve encountered with the renovation and restoration of our historic home that was destroyed in a flood in January 2023.
Sometimes I think that this home renovation of ours should be a reality TV show. The drama never ends!
You can see the devastation here.
Two specific experiences have caused me to consider how no single course of action is the appropriate thing to do all the time.
When to Trust Others, and When to Trust Your Gut: Lessons Learned from our Home Reno!
I’m thankful to each of you for your support as I’ve built our Civic Renaissance community, wrote a book on civility, and raised our two precious children.
However, these past 18 months, have been some of the most stressful and stretching times of my life. Not only have I been on book tour across 45 cities in four countries, but I have also been the general contractor on our house renovation after a flood destroyed our home that we had only lived in for 8 months. We discovered the devastation upon our return home to Indiana after a wonderful family Christmas vacation in Canada, Jan 2023.
This home introduced my husband and I to the world contractors—even more so after the flood, where I was tasked with hiring and firing people daily for the one million projects necessary to complete before moving back home. We have had to make many, many decisions. Some of our contractors have been amazing and have gone above and beyond.
Others proved to be in over their head.
Some of my decisions were good—others were very poor. I find myself having less and less faith in my ability to judge someone’s character after meeting them myself, or even after receiving a glowing recommendation from a trusted friend or resource.
Most of all, I am having to learn when to listen to advice of others—and when to listen to my gut instincts.
A Tale of Two Contractors
One contractor, L, had limitless confidence in himself and his abilities. You name it, he’s done it, and he could do it again. He made me feel like things were possible, things were happening, things were going to get done, and we’d be back in our home soon. And he was also very reasonable in price. I virtually never negotiate with people on the prices of their projects. I’ve learned that if people don’t feel well-compensated, they’re not bringing their best work to the fore, which doesn’t help us in the long run.
I never once negotiated with L on the price of a project. In fact, I’d often double the prices of his estimates to ensure he didn’t underpay himself. But I’ve come to learn in life that when people and opportunities seem too good to be true, they normally are.
Slowly, L’s promises began to unravel. Missed deadline after missed deadline. Going over budget. Making mistakes or delivering work that wasn’t of the quality we expected, only to have to redo it, costing us more time and money as a result.
The list of headaches went on. Then, one day, L stopped showing up to work due to a series of personal crises. His son was sick, then his wife, then a car accident—all back to back. Worried he might not be able to finish our project, I brought in another contractor to look at his work just so I was prepared to have someone else in place to finish it.
We were in for a rude awakening.
Contractor after contractor came to look at our project and told us the same thing: everything that L had “custom built” was unsalvageable and would have to be ripped out and started from scratch. It was made of poor-quality material—cheap 2x4s and plywood—which I didn’t know. Cuts weren’t straight. Different types of wood were mixed together, resulting in a poor end product. There were nails in the face of the cabinets, which is apparently a big no-no. The list of problems—which had previously gone right over my head—now smacked me right in the face.
I felt silly for not noticing earlier, but having never done a renovation before, I had no idea what I was looking at.
It was gutting to feel that nine months of work and tens of thousands of dollars would have to be flushed down the drain. Now, we had to start completely from scratch—throwing the money away, but I grieved more the time we had lost, and how this setback delayed our hopes of moving into our home within a few months.
The worst part is, there were several red flags early on that we chose to ignore. One was a carpenter who came to look at a different project and complained to us that L had no idea what he was doing. We dismissed him as an annoying busybody and decided to let L continue the work. His work looked fine to us, and he was a good and honest guy, so why rock the boat? The second flag was a former customer who reached out to us with concerns about L’s work and ability to finish projects—but we also chose to ignore this.
We decided to trust our experience with him—which at that point was wholly positive—rather than believe the word of others.
Doing so cost us greatly.
Fast forward to a current source of frustration for me that involves—surprise, surprise—my home renovation and another contractor.
From day one, M did nothing but complain about our job. This wasn’t perfect, this wasn’t straight. No way he could start without this fixed!
“Great,” I said to him. “Fix it. You bid this job, it’s yours to finish.”
But he didn’t. Instead, he pulled other contractors off their projects to do his work for him.
Everyone seemed to love M—his competence and excellence and they assured me he would do great work.
I was torn. On one hand, I liked his perfectionism and standard of excellence. I kept telling myself, “Just stay humble, stay nimble, and you’ll be rewarded with a good end product.”
On the other hand, the constant complaining and pulling people off their work to do his was a repeated source of aggravation.
He threatened to quit once a week—I’d grovel and persuade him to please just finish the project, as that seemed the most expedient way to get our family back into our home.
And then finally, one day, he quit for good. I let him go, rather gladly.
My experience with these two contractors reveal that sometimes, it’s worth listening to others. We should have listened to the early reported concerns with L’s work. It would have saved us much heartache. Instead, I trusted my gut, which turned out to be misguided.
Other times, however, people are wrong. I listened to the people around me whom I trust and who vouched for M—and ignored my instincts—and this decision turned out to be a painful one, too.
Sometimes in life, there are no easy, simple answers. There are certainly no static rules that apply universally to all people and circumstances. We need to cultivate wisdom, discretion, and discernment to understand when to listen to others, and when to listen to the still, quiet voice within our souls that might be guiding us to make a different decision..
Questions to Consider:
What other lessons can we take from this story? What aspects of these dueling narratives am I missing?
How do we decide when to listen to others and when to go with our gut?
How do we decide when to stick with an uncomfortable and vexing situation, or to cut ties and losses, and walk away?
In life, we’re always going to encounter people who disappoint us, whether through incompetence or poor character. What are some ways that we can respond to this?
Share with me your thoughts in the comments below.
Notes from the Book Tour
I was excited to keynote in D.C. at American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to their 75 honors students from across North America about why civility supports a free and flourishing society.
Looking ahead:
June 19 - book talk in Austin, TX. (Register here!)
June 26 - Brookfield Academy’s Center for Mission & Academics, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
July 10 - 12- Freedom Fest, Las Vegas, NV. Register here!
July 13 - Willian F. Buckley Jr. Communicators Workshop, Arlington, VA Register here!
August 6 - National Conference of State Legislatures, Louisville, KY
In the news:
Wonderful conversation at Stanford University for Francis Fukuyama’s YouTube Show.
Thank you to Utah Public Radio for hosting an hour-long, wide-ranging episode about the most important question of our day: how might we flourish across difference? Let me know your thoughts, and click here to listen.
Thankful to discuss my book on the PBS show, which you can watch The Open Mind!
The Action Institute, Acton Line Podcast- Seeking Civility: Important Principles for Divided Times. Listen here.
Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!
A giveaway! Ryan Holiday’s new book, “Right Thing, Right Now”
I’m giving away TWELVE copies of Ryan’s excellent new book, being published TOMORROW!
This is a handbook to help readers to live with justice and integrity, equipped with the wisdom of the past and those who have come before us.
To enter to win a copy, simply:
Share this post with a friend who might enjoy it (honor system here—I won't ask or track this!), OR
Comment with your thoughts on this post below,
AND
Write to me at ah@alexandraohudson.com with the subject line JUSTICE
Thank you for being part of the Civic Renaissance community!
"How do we decide when to stick with an uncomfortable and vexing situation, or to cut ties and losses, and walk away?" truly resonated with me. It's never easy and I think most people's tendency is to fall into the sunk cost fallacy and hold on too long.
"How do we decide when to listen to others and when to go with our gut?"
Although I've never done a reno like your situation - I generally think that if people come forward to give advice on a specific person or company - and they're not generally the type of people who complain a lot - I would take it seriously. So, I guess it depends on the person who was giving me the 'contradictory' advice - what is *that* person's character like? Are they trustworthy enough that I should take their concerns seriously?
As far as one's gut or intuition - I talk to my kids about this a lot. Sometimes our body reacts with a physiological reaction but we tamp it down to suppress the feeling because it feels unfounded, or the impact of us following that (confrontation? more research into a better option?) is draining/costly in time and energy and we'd rather just not do that... but when the pebble in your shoe is there...it irritates until it begins to blister...and then you usually have a worse situation than you started with. I tend to trust my gut a lot but it's taken a lot of practice of not suppressing it because it feels ridiculous or silly.